


Sleep, Dear Heart

by FenVallas



Series: Revasel Lavellan [6]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-18
Updated: 2015-07-18
Packaged: 2018-04-09 22:11:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4366124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FenVallas/pseuds/FenVallas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Revasel Struggles through the snow and the cold and finds herself in the care of Solas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleep, Dear Heart

The world around her was icy and colorless, pressing in on her from all sides. If she had wondered before what manner of demons had met her in the abandoned mine shaft, she wondered no more. Cold had leeched from their skin like a mist, penetrating her soul and filling her with an utter sense of loss and hopelessness.

The feeling hadn’t left her since.

Still, she had to push on, the mark on her hand crackling and flaring with a green light that set her nerves on edge. It was the only light she could see by in the darkness as she struggled up another snow-covered slope, dyed an eerie green. Her clothing had long ago soaked through, but it was no relief from the crackling heat of Haven burning in her memory, and offered no distraction from the ice lodged inside of her heart.

Her willpower was all she had.

“If you stop, you die,” she told herself, her own voice swallowed up by the headwinds whipping snow into her face and obscuring her vision. “You can’t stop. You have to keep going.”

Rey tried to think of things to give her strength, when each breath hurt and each step was a fight against fatigue and the creeping chill of death.

She pictured Cassandra’s stern but concerned face, scowling at her in a way that could only be described as soft, admonishing her for her ridiculous self-sacrifice, her relief barely contained. Dorian, twirling his mustache in one hand, would pretend like her near death experience was nothing, even though anxiety and relief would intermingle deep in his eyes as he offered her a warming drink.

She thought of the Commander, Cullen who had supported her efforts to save as many people as possible. He had made her promise to do whatever it took to come back to them, and in that moment she had felt his respect which lingered now and gave her strength that melted a bit of the dread in her heart.

In the distance, a wolf howled.

Rey laughed, though it caught in her through and ended in a choked noise. The hand grasping the staff she was using to support her weight turned white against the wood as she gripped it tighter.

She fought the involuntary image of a wolf stalking her through the night, a wolf with red eyes and a slavering maw, larger than any other beast that called the Frostbacks home. It was superstition to assume the Dread Wolf himself would creep after her through the darkness to devour her soul, but alone in the wilderness, a storm howling around her, it was easier to believe that dead gods yet roamed the earth.

Then again, she thought with a bitter smile, if the gods yet worked in this world, it made sense that they would work through the natural elements. She had always believed the Dread Wolf to be a warning to fear mutiny from within, but as the mark on her palm awakened every nerve in her body with supernatural energy, she was forced to remember that there was magic in this world not explainable through the Fade and Spirits alone. The last of the Pantheon could still roam the earth, and perhaps wished to claim the life of the world’s most notable Dalish Elf, his hatred given life in the brutal winds.

Even her brother’s optimistic view of Fen’Harel as an incomplete god was no comfort to her now.

Rey thought of Mahvir instead of the pressing sense of fear that threatened to consume her if she gave it a foothold. She thought of the way he had seen her off before she had gone to the Conclave, almost tearful in his quiet way, pulling her into a crushing hug as he wished her off and made her promise to come back.

She no longer thought it was possible to go back to the Clan for good. Rey realized she had become the center of the Inquisition, that whether or not the world at large thought of Cassandra and Leliana as the center of the organization, she was the one making the decisions. Even if she couldn’t go back, even if her fate was tied to this organization’s for the rest of her life, she thought she might want to bring her brother to her.

Her chest ached for the loss of him, missing him keenly in this moment when he would give her words of hope that she could not even begin to imagine. Instead, she focused on surviving long enough to see him again, to hold him in her arms and apologize for leaving him alone for so long.

The storm began to abate and it made it easier for Rey to travel. The ground was steadily becoming more level, and though her entire body ached, she felt some of the strain on her battered and bruised frame ease. She needed healing, though how badly she couldn’t even begin to guess. A mage she may be, but magical remedies had never been her forte, a talent possessed by her brother and the only other Elven healer she’d ever met.

In her mind, she imagined Solas’ pale blue eyes, fondly conjuring images of his arms wrapped around her and they had after the events of Redcliffe. Something about him gave her a bit more strength. Solas would be waiting for her, and he wouldn’t have given into despair. There was always such steely resolve in his stare, even in the darkest of his moments, so if anyone believed she would return, it was Solas.

Rey clenched her jaw this time and pulled herself up over the last rise where she looked down into the valley below. In the distance a dozen fires burned warmly, and though she did not trust her legs to carry her down the hill, she let out a surprised shout of delight, drawing the attention of several figures patrolling the very edge of the camp.

Her strength gave way, though she didn’t know if it was from exhaustion or relief, and she tumbled into the snow, barely aware of the shouting voices. It seemed the storm had cleared just in time for them to see her struggle over the crest of the hill.

Later, she would struggle with the realization that the people of the Inquisition would see the weather itself as intervention from the Maker. Far away from the stress of her lonely trek through the mountains, she would come to think of the weather as simply weather and lament that she had ever thought differently in her desperation.

But for now, she knew nothing but the sweet embrace of oblivion.

* * *

 

She woke only briefly, perhaps drawn from unconsciousness by the cool fingers brushing her hair out of her eyes. Revasel felt unbearably warm, wrapped in furs and blankets, and the fingers were such a contrast that they pulled her from the darkness.

“Revasel.”

She recognized the voice immediately, and struggled to sit up so that she could properly look at its owner only to find herself pushed back to the surface beneath her. His hand soothed over her head again, long fingers so very cold against her skin, though she didn’t know if it was because she was especially warm or the air around them was exceptionally cold. Revasel opened her mouth in an attempt to speak, but a finger quickly pressed to her lips, silencing her.

“She wants you to know that she is okay and that she is happy to see you,” said another voice to her general left, dreamy and distant.

“I am glad she is safe,” the hand left her lips, propping her head up while the other pressed something cold to her lips. “Drink, Lavellan.”

She obeyed, finding the concoction soothing on a throat that she hadn’t even realized was raw but disgusting to the taste. Gulping it down, she was grateful when he followed the potion with water.

“Smoke and fire, and then she’s swallowed by the black. In the distance, a wolf howls, and she wonders if **_he’s_** caught her scent. Pinching, stinging, fear and the blizzard is his wrath. How did I get here? Solas, what happened to me?” The second voice speaks again, and she attempts to figure out who it belongs to, what face it belongs to, but she can’t quite recall.

“Cassandra and Cullen found you collapsed just outside of the camp’s perimeter and immediately brought you to me.” His fingers soothed through her hair again, still pleasant against her fevered skin. “You had sustained many injuries, facing the man with the Blighted Dragon on your own. It is miraculous that you still live.”

“She doesn’t like the word miracles. It makes her think of being the Herald of Andraste, and she believes in Fen’Harel more than the Maker. Whirling insider her, the uncertainty of belief, but at least the Dread Wolf isn’t absentee.” The voice sounded again, and it made the front of her head burn with a barely formed memory, fuzzy, the shape of a hat and a pair of bright blue eyes. “She remembers me.”

“Yes, Cole, I believe she does,” Solas said, fingers pausing at the crown of her head. “Think about how you are feeling, Lavellan. Where does it hurt? Is there anything that can be done to make it more comfortable for you?”

“You’re worried about her,” said the strange boy called Cole, a comment to which Solas did not respond, not that she could hear, anyway. “You want her to be well, but you don’t tell her. Why?”

She felt Solas tense against her, but he relaxed a moment later. Revasel could feel him look away from her, his gaze directed over her body toward the presence at her left. “Because, Cole, some things do not need to be said in order to be obvious.”

Her mind was somewhat hazy, but she remembered Solas asking her how she felt, so she tried to open her mouth only to find his finger pressed against her lips once more. This time, she could focus on his face clearly when he leaned over her to give her a reproving look. She thought he looked as tired and haggard as she felt, the deep shadows under his eyes making her wonder if he had slept at all while she was gone.

“She’s worried about you, too, and thinks about the aching muscles, creaking joints, hot skin she suffers. Sometimes worry is worse. She wants you to sleep. Please don’t suffer because of me.”

“That is good,” Solas said, seemingly ignoring her concern, though something flickered across his features, perhaps a bit of surprise, though her mind couldn’t process much else. “However, she is the one who needs sleep right now. She must recover, as our supplies will not last forever if we remain in one place.”

“She is their leader. They will be lost without her, a flock without a shepherd to guide them.”

“Yes.” Solas’ fingers began to move through her hair again, and he leaned closer, close enough that for a moment she had the ridiculous notion that he might kiss her. “Sleep, Revasel.”

Magic pushed into her, and though it was familiar, she’d never felt it weave into her very being like it did in this moment, making her eyelids heavy. There was something intimate about the curl of it, the way his breath ghosted across her eyelids and seemed to spread through her limbs, making them heavy. Her coherence fled from her, and soon the conversation Cole and Solas were having above her was nothing more than the muffled timbre of their voices, soothing as a balm.

Her last thought before the Fade claimed her was of Solas’ face and the way his cold fingers felt threading through her hair, absently stroking as a means to comfort them both.


End file.
